He took a deep breath and rested his hand over mine.
As we stood together, my eye caught the glint of a chipped basin on the corner table, and I smiled.
At first, his room appeared sparse, as if he’d never intended to stay. But now I realized everything had a memory attached to it. The basin I’d broken as a child. The blanket he’d hidden when I’d accidentally caught my room on fire and scorched it. The sword his mother had given him when we’d snuck out to meet her.
“What is it?” Chevelle asked as he turned to hold me in his arms.
“I was just thinking,” I lied, “that we should move into the main suites. Now that we are bound.” My head tilted briefly to the side. “If you can give up this view, that is.”
He stared down at me, the corner of his mouth pulling up in a sexy smile, and answered, “I quite prefer another view.”
I laid my hand on his chest, over the beat of his heart, and he leaned down. His lips brushed softly over mine.
The kiss was sweet, slow. It said we had time.
It said we had forever.
The next day, I sat kneeling in front of my bureau. It had been my first real night with Chevelle, and I’d woken refreshed, my dreams no longer haunted by flame. My issues, if temporarily, had been laid to rest.
The fey had been watching us for a long time, maybe guiding things to their own advantage. But for now, I felt safe. We had the north, and Junnie’s new council the south. We had balanced the power, so there was no need for war. But if Veil were pushed, if the fey would strike, together we could overcome them.
“You have almost nothing of interest in here,” Ruby complained from the wardrobe behind me.
“Well,” I answered, not looking away from my task, “then it should be fairly easy to move.”
Ruby laughed, but I did, in truth, have plenty of interest here. I thought of the box, hidden beneath the stone floor below the bed.
It was time to start a new life, new memories. The others were buried within the box, as they should be.
“I still have some things to work out,” Ruby murmured. “But at least I know where the wolves were all that time.”
I slid the bureau drawer shut and stacked the filled box with the others.
“Like these,” Ruby continued, walking over to hand me a small slip of paper.
I turned, taking one last, long look out my window.
Fellon Strago Dreg.
Even Chevelle had not known the meaning when he’d used the message so long ago. He’d simply seen the opportunity and taken it.
“So,” Ruby reminded me, “What’s it mean?”
I glanced down at the message, written in my mother’s hand.
The warning had followed me, questioned my every move. And it was still here now, in the midst of so much rightness. As I had accepted my place under the weight of the throne.
I couldn’t help the sardonic smile that crossed my lips before I answered her question.
“Nothing as it seems, Ruby. Nothing as it seems.”